Sideswipe: 12 Oct: Hot Kiwi Pies

A reader writes: "I've been hooked on the cooking show My Kitchen Rules this season but I am confounded as to why near the end of each episode a waiter carrying a tray with the names of the two contestants appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I know it must be part of some promotion (who NZ has picked to be eliminated this week, apparently) but nine times out of 10 it's the names of the couple who end up getting booted off. When it's actually revealed who is going home, their names have been plastered across the screen and it just feels like a massive spoiler! Please, TV2, don't do it for the final next week."

Facebook alert false alarm

Yesterday, Labour MP Phil Goff updated his Facebook with, "Constable Adam Begg killed by a train in Parnell tunnel while pursuing an armed robber." What? OMG! Herald newshounds quickly dispatched two photographers and two reporters to the scene. But a call to Goff shortly after revealed that the former party leader was wandering through a cemetery reading a headstone from 1936.

Only in South America

1 YouTube has blocked a video critical of a mayoral candidate in Campo Grande, Brazil. Brazilian law limits personal criticism of candidates during an election. The company blocked the video after a Brazilian judge ordered the arrest of the top executive in Brazil of Google, YouTube's parent company.

2 A politician has been arrested in Brazil - for allegedly handing out cocaine with her election leaflet. Carme Cristina Lima, 32, was running to be a city councillor in Itacoatiara, in the northern state of Amazonas. Police became suspicious when they saw a crowd gathering around Ms Lima's car on the morning of the election. Officers searched her car and allegedly found hundreds of packets of cocaine attached to the candidate's leaflets with instructions on how to vote for her. Ms Lima was arrested for electoral corruption and drug dealing.

Majority not always right, eh?

That's not what Facebook friends are for ... A reader writes: "What a pity that Saatchi and/or L&P couldn't do their homework properly and simply by, say, opening a dictionary and checking the meanings of aye (or ay) and eh. Any such old-fashioned enquiry would have quickly and clearly revealed that 'eh' is correct and 'aye' is plainly wrong. Right? Aye, aye Captain! Cool eh?"